MADRID — A Spanish court says a bungee jumping instructor’s poor English may have led a 17-year-old Dutch woman to jump to her death without being connected by rope to a viaduct in northern Spain two years ago.

The northern Cantabria regional court says the instructor’s order of “no jump,” instead of “don’t jump,” may easily have been understood by the victim as “now jump.”

The instructor is under investigation for negligent homicide. The death...